What in the world is Clifford Testing?

More and more local residents who visit Susquehanna Dental Arts are discovering the benefits of avoiding harmful foods, chemicals and other substances through thoughtful modification of their diets, habits and activities. As a holistic dentistry practice, this excites us, because better-informed patients are good for dentists, too.

A sign of this trend is the frequency of a question we’ve been getting at our office: what is Clifford Materials Reactivity Testing (CMRT)?

More commonly referred to as Clifford Testing, CMRT is designed to provide us with extensive information about your chemical sensitivities. As you can probably guess, people’s sensitivities vary immensely. In order to find out what dental materials and treatments work best for you, we perform the Clifford Test, which is a laboratory test of blood serum for pre-existing antibodies against a list of over 90 chemical groups.

If your test reveals that your body displays sensitivity problems to a certain chemical, products using that chemical (out of a database of over 17,000 dental products) are flagged and will not be recommended for use. This provides an additional layer of protection from products which may be fine for most patients, but could cause you some discomfort.

Our goal at Susquehanna Dental Arts has always been to protect the health and well-being of our patients. A healthy mouth has proven to play a part in a healthy life, and this is why we care so deeply about holistic dental treatments.

If you’d like to learn more about Clifford Materials Reactivity Testing, you can visit the Clifford Consulting & Research website which dives a bit deeper into the testing, provides additional resources, and answers some frequently-asked questions. You can also give us a call at 717-684-3943 and we’ll be happy to help.